Merry Christmas from Old Coralville

Here we are today, a couple days BEFORE Christmas.. Read that CHRISTMAS!! Nobody will take that away from me... CHRISTMAS!!

Lots of fun memories from back in the day here in Coralville...At Coralville Elementary we always had a big Christmas music day. We (all grades I think) got herded into the MASSIVE (way small) Gymnasium,,, the Wade Russell Room for you old guys like me.. ( I knew Wade Russell).. The north 15 feet of the 'gym' was a Stage area.. Lots of big wooden doors underneath for access to folding chairs etc.....Certain classes would go UP on the Stage and sing Christmas songs. They always rolled a piano in, and a Teacher would play,, Jingle Bells. ,, etc, and other fun songs, and the WHOLE place would be rockin'! It was great fun.. NOW we can't do stuff like that...NO WAY! Might alienate some poor kid in the 3rd grade who is not a 'believer' in CHRISTMAS.. Did I say 'MERRY CHRISTMAS" yet?...I also remember that each Home Room had a CHRISTMAS tree, and we would make little ornaments ( I still have some that I made in Kindergarden, 2nd grade etc,, they are REAL nice.....(right)), etc, AND we had a gift exchange once in awhile. Moms brought cookies, treats, etc..BET that doesn't happen now! THEN CHRISTMAS break would start. No school for several days.......Here in Coralville back in the 50s, and early 60s,, that's all we had.. SO, during this time we went to school to play in the gym at nite, we went ice skating on the ice rink, east of the school and down the hill), and we walked around town throwing the ever present snowballs etc.. BIG fun was to go to lower Finkbine on a Saturday afternoon and go sliding, OR over to Melrose Lake for ice skating.. (not as much fun as in Coralville),, we played hours and hours of crack the whip, red rover, capture the flag, HOURS and HOURS!! We were all pretty good skaters, with guys like Rodney Lynch and Terry Oakes being REAL good!! Let's see, MarySue Gatens was a good 'girl skater', Betty Crandall too, and of course others!! We played hockey, and made it a point to skate until we were tired!! What fun. NO place to 'shop' in Coralville, except for the Gift Shop on 5th street, so we went Downtown Iowa City.. Lots of good stuff! Always took time to see the Schwinn bikes at Novotny's bike shop downtown.....Spent several afternoons building snow forts in the neighborhood, followed by HUGE snowball fights...Ah yes the days in Old Coralville!